


Cut Short

by Ahmerst



Category: DRAMAtical Murder
Genre: Amputation, M/M, interrupted bad end, spoilers for Clear's bad end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 04:50:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1141643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahmerst/pseuds/Ahmerst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off <a href="http://wideop3n.tumblr.com/post/70463848998/alternative-ending-where-koujaku-takes-his-time">this</a> wonderful piece of art by <a href="http://wideop3n.tumblr.com/">Wideop3n</a> in which Koujaku interrupts Clear’s bad route before he can finish what he’s started, and the ensuing aftercare.</p>
<p>There is also another piece of art she did for this fic, which you can find <a href="http://wideop3n.tumblr.com/post/72389298922/based-on-this-post-where-i-talked-about-an-idea">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cut Short

Koujaku’s hand slips once, and just the once. But it’s enough, the shears between his fingers closing and the sure snip of their blades sounding as a lock two inches long falls easily onto his customer’s smock, settles there like it was meant to be.

On his shoulder perches Beni, using for once his indoor voice as he chirps softly into Koujaku’s ear. Ren has a message for him, a request that he come home at once.

Koujaku doesn’t exactly know how they keep in contact when miles apart, figures All Mates just have some wavelength that they get to share, but however it is they speak, he listens to it.

He tells the woman who sits before him that he’s done, tells those around her that he’s more that done in fact, he’s finished for the day. When she looks in a hand mirror to admire her new look, Koujaku hastily explains the cut, says that asymmetry is in vogue these days, that it brings out the image of youth in those who showcase it.

She buys it wholesale, and he’s off with a long stride and a preoccupied mind as he tucks the hefty tip she hands him into his pocket.

When Koujaku reaches home and enters his apartment, he finds the lights on, each and every one. They’ve been on since before that morning. Since before last night. Aoba likes them on, and while Koujaku doesn’t understand entirely why, he indulges him in what comforts he can.

There’s a scrambling from the bedroom that hits his heart in the same instant it hits his ears, and he makes his way to the closed door and stands outside it with his hands clenched. He counts the seconds and tries to listen to the sound of his own breathing instead of the muffled noises he hears within. Thirty seconds is enough of a headstart, he figures.

When he opens the door, nothing is off. Not immediately, at least.

Aoba reclines on the expanse of his bed, the red of the covers pulled up to his waist, head turned toward the opening door. There’s a smile on his lips that edges on strained, like a child that isn’t sure if it’s been caught doing wrong, thinks it might have a chance of going scot-free.

He doesn’t look at Koujaku, but Koujaku doesn’t take it personally.

It’s not something he can help.

Over his eyes is a pale blindfold. While something he was once unable to remove, he now refuses to let it be touched. There’s nothing under there, the doctors have told Koujaku, so he’s never tried to look. He knows what it’s like to want nothing more than to hide what’s been inflicted on you.

“You’re home early,” Aoba says, and he smooths the covers over his thighs, brushes absently over the spots where his kneecaps should be.

“The weather turned bad,” Koujaku lies. “Customers all headed indoors to escape the rain.”

Aoba pats the spot next to him as he licks his lips, a little excited, a little nervous. Koujaku takes the hint to sit, can smell the faint fragrance of shampoo and conditioner from Aoba’s wet hair, sees the damp spots on the shoulders of his shirt from where the strands lay.

It’s the shirt Koujaku had left him in that morning, but it’s been turned inside out.

There’s an aching kind of pang in his chest as he understands now why Ren asked him to return.

Aoba’s been moving. Leaving the bed, pulling himself to the bathroom to wash. From the faint scent of toast in the air, Koujaku can only imagine he’s been trying to feed himself too. The thought of it, the idea he envisions of how it must look for Aoba to drag himself blindly from room to room in an apartment he’s unfamiliar with, makes it hard to swallow around the quickly-forming knot in Koujaku’s throat.

“Let me see you,” Aoba says, and Koujaku turns his head to meet Aoba’s hand as it reaches for him.

Aoba cups his cheek, lets his thumb rest over Koujaku’s lip before letting their conversation continue. This is how he sees now, with the topography of touch.

Koujaku tries to find words to stir up small talk, but all he can do it is look. Stares at how the tag of the shirt Aoba’s wearing shows at the collar. It’s big on him, too big, but not as big as it was. Not the heap of cloth that engulfed the frame of bones with skin stretched tight he found on the cold steel of an operating table months ago.

“So let me guess, Ren snitched on me for being a little too spry, huh?” Aoba asks.

He turns his head to the doorway as he speaks, as though knowing Ren will be there, observing. But he’s not. Ren sits on the edge of the bed instead, a small, quiet figure with ears lowered in concern. When he stands the pad closer, Koujaku watches the way Aoba’s lips curve down as he realizes his misplaced look.

When Aoba offers his free hand to Ren, it’s received with a delicate sniff before his snout is nuzzling into it, amicable and familiar.

“You were not listening to reason, Aoba. I felt it my duty to ensure nothing went wrong,” Ren says, a half-note of apology in his voice.

“Yeah, yeah. Just warn me next time if you’re going to call the babysitter. And you,” Aoba says, pinching Koujaku’s cheek, “need to come up with a more believable excuse next time you come home early.”

“I’ll do my best,” Koujaku says, breath puffing out in a laugh as Aoba’s thumb returns to his lips. He kisses lightly at his fingertip, ventures a little nip before Aoba’s chuckling as well.

Aoba shifts his weight then, and Koujaku doesn’t need words to know what to do next. He gathers up the sheets along with Aoba, who’s light, so very, very light, and pulls him into his lap.

He fits oddly, but it’s perfect all the same.

“I missed you,” Aoba says softly as he tucks himself close to Koujaku.

“And I always miss you, Aoba. I’ll see about taking more time off so we can be together more often.

Aoba snorts.

“You sound like some kind of businessman. You don’t have to ease off the job or anything, I was just saying I missed you is all. It’s not like I get super lonely, I have Ren after all. Plus Virus and Trip check up on me.”

“Mm, yeah. They sure do,” Koujaku says.

He’s heard Aoba speaking to them over his coil before. The way they go back and forth, the easy, casual banter as though nothing ever happened. They never nanny or nurse him, pretend he’s ever anything other than whole.

They’d been how Koujaku had found Aoba in the first place. He’d seen them strolling the alleyways as they normally did, like they hadn’t a care in the world as they watched over everyone. Koujaku had grunted in acknowledgment when they greeted him, figured it’d be enough to send them away, but then the opposite had happened.

He’d wanted them to stay. Not for their company, but for what he heard between them. Aoba’s name, spoken in their usual reverent coo.

“Hey, two two talking about Aoba?” he asked, cutting in front of them before they had time to pass.

“Of course we are,” Virus had said, eyes as icy and unsettling as ever. “Haven’t you heard? They say he’s stuck in the Oval Tower with that funny little friend of his. You know, the one with the mask.”

And it had been true.

Along the way Koujaku had dispatched of that funny little friend once, twice, three times. In the tower they all had the same face, the same sneering smiles and lit-up eyes, bodies filled with gears and bolts and a hundred thousand wires.

In the end, he wasn’t sure he’d gotten rid of Clear at all, but he had Aoba, and that was infinitely more important.

“We talked today,” are the words that interrupt Koujaku’s thoughts, draw him back to the present as Aoba speaks.

“Hm? Who?”

“Trip and Virus and I. They told me not to worry, that there are all kinds of medical advancements that’ll make me better soon enough.”

“Medical advancements?” Koujaku asks, eyes a small tangle at the end of Aoba’s hair, fingers curling as he thinks of untangling it. He settles for holding Aoba closer instead.

“They said they’re doing eye transplants. Right here in Midorijima, even. I mean, I’ve never heard anything about it, but they said they knew some people who had the operation and turned out fine. So I figure it can’t be too long before I can see—” he pauses, stumbles over the word before he bites he tongue as though he can take it back. “—find out if I can have it done.”

“And you trust them on this?”

Aoba hums a thoughtful sound as that, and Koujaku watches his brows knit, lips thinning as he mulls over his answer.

“I believe them.”

It’s the answer Koujaku wanted to hear without knowing it himself.

“In the meantime, you know I’m more than happy to wait on you beck and call,” Koujaku says, lets his breath tickle against Aoba’s temple to warn him he’s about to plan a kiss against his skin. Aoba leans into it, sighs in the way that says he wishes Koujaku wouldn’t say that.

They share another moment of silence as they enjoy the closeness of one another, Aoba comfortable against Koujaku, warm through the fabric of his shirt as their bodies rest together. He squirms only slightly as the minutes pass, reaches a hand over the sheets and rubs at his leg.

Koujaku’s hand follows soon after, pauses for a moment before he overtakes Aoba’s hand and keeps going. His palm comes to rest on what can only be described as a stump, smooth with pink scar tissue right above where Aoba’s knee should be.

“Is it bothering you?” he asks softly, massages along where the sutures once were.

“I don’t know,” Aoba says, and he sounds honest.

“Why don’t I get you your medication, that’ll help.”

Aoba goes tense then, bites his lower lip and shakes his head.

“You know it makes me tired, and I don’t want to sleep.”

Koujaku nods at that. He doesn’t want Aoba to sleep either, doesn’t like the sight. There’s no relaxed look of peace for Aoba when he sleeps. Only a deathly, terrible stillness that comes from being strapped down too many times and for too long. That, or the wild nightmarish thrash that comes when he doesn’t recall that he’s free now.

The worst is when he tries to kick out to free himself from a captor that isn’t there.

“How about you let me get that dumb knot out of your hair before it’s completely dry, then? Because it’s completely driving my hairstylist side up the wall.”

Aoba perks then, lifts his head and reaches up a hand to touch at the tips of his hair, glances over the small mess of blue strands.

“I was wondering why it felt like someone was pinching it,” he says.

“Ah, so it’s lively today, is it?”

That’s how they speak about Aoba’s hair now, like it’s alive. Aoba’s remarked that the sensation has been on and off again lately, sometimes dull and hardly there for days, then suddenly very much back.

“Hopeing it’ll be on it’s way out for good soon?” Koujaku asks he he shifts Aoba, sets him in front of him as he eyes his hair.

Aoba’s head gives a thoughtful tilt, lips set in a pensive line as he thinks.

“Before I would have, but now— I don’t want to lose anything else,” Aoba says, his smile soft and unsure.

Koujaku almost says he understands, but he doesn’t. For all the loss he’s experienced in his life, he’s different from Aoba. He can still stand on his own two feed, feed and clothe himself without error. He doesn’t need to be carried like a child or placed in a wheelchair to move.

Koujaku lets his fingers trail along the ends of Aoba’s hair as he observes the knot, works with more delicacy and grace than he’s ever put into a haircut. He’s attentive to each breath Aoba takes in, every movement his body takes. Watches for a hint of a flinch, the tensing of a muscle to tell him he’s not being careful enough.

He relies entirely on his eyes for the task, and he tries not to think about that.

“Better now?” he asks when he’s done, draws back to admire his handiwork.

“Much better,” Aoba says, touching the now-smooth lock of hair.

From outside comes a low rumble of thunder that rolls through the room, and the sudden sound of rain pinging off the roof is its punctuation. Aoba turns his head at the sound, faces the window with his ear slightly to it.

“Guess the weather was pretty shoddy after all,” he remarks. “Think you could get the window for me?”

“Of course,” Koujaku says as he stands. He goes to the window and unlatches the lock on it, presses his hands to the pane as he pushes it up. Rain falls fast onto the sill, blown in from the wind outside.

When he glances back, Aoba’s smiling warm and broad as the sound, hands curled in the sheets that pool around him.

“Anything else I can do for you? Anything to snack on or some extra blankets?”

Aoba goes quiet for ten seconds too long, and Koujaku’s heart gives a sickened sort of lurch. There’s an instant worry in his mind, a fear that Aoba will go back to how he was when he first found him.

Voiceless and unresponsive except for the occasional frightened shiver.

“Aoba, what is it? What’s wrong?” Koujaku asks, taking a step closer. “I’ll go get your medicine—”

“No,” Aoba cuts in. “Just— just stop it, Koujaku.”

There’s the soft flutter of wings as Beni leaves the room, the quiet click of Ren’s nails following soon after as they leave give their owners privacy.

“Stop what?”

“Stop this, all this talk of waiting on me hand and foot. I get it, I’m all fucked up now, don’t think I can forget it for even a second, whether I’m awake or asleep. But I don’t need you babying me like this, I don’t want that.”

“Then what do you want?” Koujaku asks, closing the space between them until he’s got one knee up on the bed, leaning in close. “I could take you outside to enjoy the rain, if you want.”

“I will throw up on you if you put me back in a wheelchair, so help me,” Aoba says.

Koujaku doesn’t doubt it for a second.

“What I want,” Aoba says, and the covers slip from him as he pulls himself across the bed, stops with a freezing kind of jerk when his hand meets the end of the bed, “is for you to make me forget, to make me feel whole.”

Koujaku swallows and nods at the words, takes a second before he grunts out an audible affirmation for Aoba to hear as he nears the bed. He takes in the sight of Aoba before him, head raised as he watches Koujaku without really seeing him.

“I can do that,” he says, half under his breath as he lets his hand cup Aoba’s face, thumbs his cheek before trailing his fingertips downward.

He skims along the curve of Aoba’s neck where it meets his shoulder, fans his fingers over Aoba’s chest as his palm comes to rest there. He takes in the steady rise and fall of Aoba’s breathing, picks up on the silent hitch beneath his fingertips.

He pushes lightly, and that’s all it takes to sway Aoba backwards, landing on his back with the slight squeak of bedsprings as he fingers curl in the sheets to anchor himself. The hem of his shirt rides up with the fall, belly pale and exposed, a light trail of hair dusting the skin before it cuts off at the waistband of his underwear.

Koujaku makes a note to kiss and lick and nip at the white of Aoba’s skin. To bring color to it. To bring _life_ to it.

“I think I can manage that,” Koujaku says, voice dipping into a husky rumble.

He lets his hands slide down Aoba’s sides then, thumbs at his hip bones. Aoba lifts his hips to meet the touch, and Koujaku’s tongue flicks over his lips in anticipation as he glances over the heavy outline beneath Aoba’s briefs, eyes the way the flesh of his thighs is hugged by fabric.

He doesn’t look at how when Aoba arches, there’s nothing to ground him below the knee. That while his spine leaves the bed and prettily bends, he has no toes to curl and find purchase in the covers.

Instead Koujaku leans in, hooks his fingers into Aoba’s waistband as he nuzzles into the softness of his skin. He shuts his eyes as his teeth leave light marks, tongue lapping apologetically in the wake of redness.

And most of all, he makes Aoba forget what’s happened in his past, forget the pain and fear that have taken hold of him for too long when they shouldn’t have sunk their teeth into him at all. Because that’s what Aoba’s done for Koujaku without ever knowing it, and the least he can do is return the favor.


End file.
